


Apparitions

by robin_poppyqueen



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Character Study, Jarchie - Freeform, M/M, POV Jughead Jones, Pining, S2E14: The Hills Have Eyes, Unresolved Tension, excessive amounts of forest description and water analogies, in regards to that awful vughead kiss in s2, some swearing because I couldn't help myself
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-31
Updated: 2019-10-31
Packaged: 2020-12-27 04:03:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,235
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21112355
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/robin_poppyqueen/pseuds/robin_poppyqueen
Summary: Archie turned, that same disbelieving look in his face that had kept on making Jughead furious since last night. Honestly, Archie had never been one to spill the thread out of his mouth, preferring to have the knot grow until it pressed against the inside of his skull, or at least he’d been that way with Jughead. They’ve known each other their whole lives. It should have been easy.___In which the aftermath of Jughead’s and Veronica’s kiss in the hot-tub has Archie perpetually confused and Jughead increasingly furious over it.





	Apparitions

**Author's Note:**

> "That means you and Archie are the only ones in our group who haven't kissed yet", Betty once said, blatantly pointing out the fact that healthy LGBTQ+ representation in mainstream media nowadays is still sparse while lesbian fetishization is handled as completely acceptable and thereby forcing me to write a 2,000 word piece about a whole lot of repressed gay pining. Did this a couple of months ago and I know it's late but my annoyance is as fresh as ever so here you go.
> 
> Fic title from the song Apparitions by The Raveonettes.

The air was wet and heavy with odour although the cloudy sky hadn’t split for rain over their part of state for over a week and the wind was cold enough to send a chill down his bare neck. He covered the skin with one freezing hand. The warmth leaked out of him as if it was all too ready to escape.

It was the morning clinging to the land in this part of state, waiting for the evening to take over. The dew enclosing the greenery like a cocoon. It was the clouds shutting out day from schedule: either the brink or the night, nothing beyond, nothing that says ‚here‘ and no further. He found it hard to breathe when the morning-evening kind of stench clogged his nostrils like that, the forest’s substrates so visible in the air, the emerald, algae-like ether around them drowning them.

He liked the image of them under the surface well enough. Away into the depths, cracking open the slippery, ice-blue-glowing floor of the hot tub and disappearing from the air that was seventy-nine percent death anyway. Most of it was Betty’s half-confused, half-hurt though guilt-paralysed stare as he had stood on full display against the backdrop of the nightly forest, one great, black beast breathing down his neck. His smirk had tasted bittersweet, both defeat and triumph, Veronica’s lips had tasted like nothing, really, but the memory was like acid down his throat. Same acid eating away in Archie’s eyes since that moment, that stupid frown disfiguring his face, lips tight, glance avoiding him since last night in a way that still allowed them to sharefake eye contact and a laugh or two.

The forest around them dissolved the lines. If it hadn’t been for Archie’s burning hair and the fluorescent varsity jacket, it would have been a perfectly singular world. But this way, things secretly stayed the same. He couldn’t see the sky from here. Only hear their footsteps, Jughead from time to time kicking a stone or a lonesome pine cone away to the side, into the underbrush or in front of Archie who would kick it back half-heartedly, still steering into the forest.

Jughead followed him quietly. The forest quivered around them, birds leaping from one tree to the other, swarming the air above them, mice ruffling unseen through the leaves around twining branches, dragonflies straying away from the pond that he’d spotted on their drive here. He thought, maybe if they could reclaim the water, the air wouldn’t feel as wrong anymore. He almost suggested going there. He pictured himself, shoving Archie in, it would have been freezing, he would have deserved it. Jughead would have deserved it himself if Archie pulled him with him into the black, duckweed-infested waters, but still better than the artificial light of Veronica’s extravagancies at night, still better to try to breath underwater. And there was no enjoying body warmth at all if you shut out the cold.

"Hey.“

Archie turned, that same disbelieving look in his face that had kept on making Jughead furious since last night. Honestly, Archie had never been one to spill the thread out of his mouth, preferring to have the knot grow until it pressed against the inside of his skull, or at least he’d been that way with Jughead. Or at least he had been this way since last summer, since the Grundy thing and the weeks long silence despite the reconcilement and the shared pain. They’ve known each other their whole lives. It should have been easy.

Jughead had said it without really meaning to and Archie had turned with his hands timidly hidden inside his jeans pockets and with those ridiculous creases carved into his forehead.

The problem was he had no idea what it was that should have been easy. What was in that centre of that thicket in his head. Where that thread lead to.

Jughead feigned absent-mindedness, pulling a hand out of his jacket pocket, scratching his jaw. A hundred voices coming from inside and he couldn’t decide which one to lend his tongue.

It turned out to be none of them.

"You’re not mad, are you?“, he said instead.

If possible, Archie drew his brows even closer together. "Why would I be?“

And what was it that remained unsaid?

Jughead trotted over to a moss-covered rock in a clearing to their right. The air around here had made him feel heavy. They were submerged and in what exactly he didn’t know.

He sat down, fumbling with the braces he liked to wear with good intentions but always shrugged off his shoulders during the day eventually. "I was mad. Last night. I thought—“

Archie sat down on a log that had probably been dragged there at some point in time by some faceless people who had become one with the forest as they were now. Washed off unto the shore by predisposed design.

It was at a safe distance to him. Jughead was annoyed at himself for feeling the disappointment merge with the air humidity and sink deep back into him with every breath he took.

"You know, when Betty and I started, I was always kind of expecting you to change your mind and she’d be running into your arms at the end of the day after all. Sappy, triumphant music, sunsets, all that.“

"But I don’t love Betty“, Archie tore in. "Like that.“

Jughead dipped his head to that as if he understood completely.

"Are you two okay?“

"Yeah. Just resettling. Was a bit of a break.“ Jughead inhaled deeply. "And you?“

"Ronnie and me?“ There was a pause and for a moment, it was as if they floated outside of space-time itself (which really wasn’t possible, mind you) and Jughead had all the non-time in the world to inspect this (tortured, angel-like?) face in deepest disfigurement but it was only a truce and Archie grinned stupidly, tearing apart a twig he must have picked up on his way. "Great. I’ve actually in some crazy way become part of the Lodge family lately.“

"Nothing like being embraced by my girlfriend’s mafiosi father and not having my knee-caps shattered, right?“

He didn’t actually think it sounded all that bitter. The silence afterwards was. Archie had become unreasonably sensitive as of late. That was all. Archie should spill his guts if it bothered him that much. He should just spit it out and then they might inspect that thing inside him, whatever it was, lying on the ground, a pitiful mess with no name but as long as it wasn’t there in the air with them, Jughead had no chance to kick it with all his might for further ruining one of the few good things he used to have all his life.

Jughead felt a knot tighten inside his throat. He almost cursed under his breath.

He supposed that was what his mother would have called karma.

"I mean. It’s cool“, he stuttered. "I expect Alice Cooper to open the door with a shotgun under her arm every time I ring at Betty’s so I shouldn’t talk.“

"Betty and I would avenge you, promise.“

A minute smile tugged at his lips. He didn’t look up to Archie. He knew by experience his face kept on disappointing.

But disappointing what?

"You know what Betty told me last night?“, he tried again and dared to demand eye contact. "You and I are the only ones in our group who haven’t kissed yet.“

And for once, Archie raised his brows and blinked and badly suppressed the smug smirk that could have grown on his face. "But we have.“

"I’m not sure if prepubescent smothering in my treehouse to test the waters counts, Andrews.“

Jughead just so guessed, then, that Veronica had told Archie about her and Betty some time before. He remembered Betty’s proud face and wondered how Veronica felt about it. If she had been as unattached as she’d been pressing her lips onto his. There was nothing else to suppose if it had been for something as trivial as the admission to a cheerleading squad.

Poor Betty. There had been fondness in her eyes. He felt like she’d almost forgotten that he was there with her at all. Which was pretty absurd if you considered that they had slept with each other before that lazy night chat (faceless creatures of skin and body liquids only). But she had looked happy as well, had looked happily up to him, naked and wig abandoned. What was up with the wig anyway? He hadn’t dared to ask her yet.

Poor Jughead, actually. He kept getting distracted by the thought that Archie and Veronica might hear them as they had heard Archie and Veronica the night of their arrival. Kept imagining their faces and snort-laughing into Betty’s faceless shapes. She joined in and he wasn’t sure if she didn’t secretly know about what.

"Oh, do you _want_ to kiss me?“

Archie was smirking now. Jughead mirrored it hesitantly.

"Not when you smell like overweight lumberjack.“

Archie laughed that way that made him sound as if he might consider it an outlandish idea to think that there might be just a single thing to worry about in this limitless world. At times, it almost convinced Jughead as well.

He flopped down on the flat rock, back not altogether comfortable on the uneven surface. He was eye to eye with a too-bright opening in the leafy canopy, every tiny gap in-between like bubbles rising in the water. There was not a hint of sun directly, just daylight slowly drowsing through the clouds.

There, above that fringy hole, was the surface. The forest was a bubble of water. Maybe if they stepped out—

So what if they stepped out? They’d shove at each other in a playful fashion, they’d joke about foursomes and Cheryl’s widened eyes if she only knew what she really would have missed out on, if that outlandish idea were to actually happen, and after a jolly round of solitaire their girlfriends would return and things like last night or Betty’s and Archie’s kiss in Cheryl’s driveway drifted further and further off into the deep until the darkness swallowed them whole. They would return to Riverdale and leave the forest behind. And Archie’s Unholy Frown and his look of silent desperation would resurface every once in a while in case things were going too smoothly between them. He had a feeling every one of them knew that in those moments, Archie’s eyes were his. And Jughead would never ask, only wonder, even when they were alone, even when they had a whole swath of land to themselves, in a clear fear of losing anybody at all (like he lost his mother and Jellybean and, actually, his father as well if he stopped lying to himself for a second), preferring stagnation over risk, rather not win anything at all if it meant letting go of what was there already, at the moment.

They were on due course. Exchanging trivial chitchat, treading on their own footprints from maybe an hour ago. Archie left his mutilated twig behind. Jughead’s arse was stiff.

He almost voiced the enduring discomfort but, upon seeing Archie’s face, thought the better of it. He silently walked besides him, breathing the green fog. Something made him hesitant when the driveway came into view.

"I didn’t really get it. Last night. What you and Ronnie did“, Archie said and looked at him. He could see it in the corner of his eye. "Didn’t think you would be after revenge.“

The borderland forest ground was softer in a way. He watched as his shoes sunk into the soil. "No, that wasn’t it.“

"Then what was it?“

"Don’t know. Maybe it was, come to think of it. I just thought—“

"It all felt so fake. Like everything was made out of plastic, all of a sudden.“

Archie’s face had a philosopher’s serenity. Jughead almost snorted.

He did his best to drive the petty edge off his voice. He was pretty pleased with the result. "Was between Betty and you real?“

That fucking grimace again. That fucking lip-licking, forehead-pitching mannerism again. Shuffling feet, hands off and away, don’t reveal yourselves with your fumbling fingers.

Then: "No. It was only confusing. But everything has been for some time now.“

And the same soft, too soft voice when Archie said: "Just to say, I wouldn’t want to fake-kiss you.“

And an easy way to slip out, back out into the clean and easy air again: "Does that imply that you would have nothing against real-kissing me?“

Archie almost stopped. Jughead did. Archie smiled for a short moment and it was hard to say what it was. It should have been amusement. It should have been easy to tell.

But the eyes confused him. The deep end concealed by whatever. The slightest echo of That Face (the one he secretly craved because it meant it wasn’t finished and done for good).

Archie walked away. He only looked back over his shoulder when he was almost at the lodge’s patio.

Even in the dim half-morning, half-evening light Archie stood in the picture like a torch.

The trees seemed to reach out to tickle his neck. Jughead thought of the pond and that he could use the shock of cold now. The shower would have to do.


End file.
